(a) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an automatic playing musical instrument capable of playing such as a piano or the like in accordance with a data which has previously been prepared by storing musical tones produced by a player in a suitable storage device.
(b) Description of the Prior Art
FIG. 1 is a diagrammatic illustration of a prior art automatic piano playing instrument showing briefly a construction thereof. In the figure, a reference numeral 1 denotes a key of a piano which is pivoted about a fulcrum 2 in such a way that an end portion 1b of the key 1 is moved upward when an operating portion 1a opposite to the end portion 1b is depressed downward. The upward movement of the end portion 1b is transmitted to a piano action 3 which actuates a hammer 4 to strike a string 5.
By depressing the operating portion 1a of the key 1, a key switch 8 comprising a flexible spring 6 and a contact point 7 is turned on. Musical tones produced by the string 5 are received by a microphone 9 for the transference thereof to a record control circuit 10, one or two microphones 9 being commonly used for one piano. The record control circuit 10 detects whether each of all the keys 1 is depressed or not sequentially in response to an output from the corresponding keyswitch 8 thereby periodically delivering a key data which represents each key is depressed or not to such a data recorder 11 as a cassette tape recorder. Simultaneously, the record control circuit 10 detects the strength of a key striking motion in accordance with an output from the microphone 9 thereby delivering a key striking stength data representative of the strength of a key striking motion to the data recorder 11. The data recorder 11 is activated (or the magnetic tape thereof is started to move) at the start of playing the piano in order to record sequentially the aforementioned key data and key striking strength data.
The above steps are concerned with the recording of a musical performance data generated by a player. Conversely, when the recorded musical performance data is requested to be reproduced, the data recorder 11 transfers sequentially in real time the recorded data to a reproduction logical circuit 12. In the circuit 12, a key data and a key striking strength data are reproduced in accordance with the data from the data recorder 11 for the delivery to a solenoid driving circuit 13. The solenoid driving circuit 13 generates a solenoid driving signal in accordance with the key data and key striking strength data supplied thereto, the solenoid driving signal being supplied to a solenoid 14 identified by the key data. Then, the plunger 14a of the solenoid 14 is driven upward with a speed corresponding to the key striking strength data, thereby urging the end portion 1b of the key 1 to move upward with the upper end of the plunger 14a being in contact relation to the bottom surface of the key 1 adjacent to the end portion 1b. The upward displacement of the end portion 1b is transformed via the piano action 3 into the striking motion of the hammer 4, thereby striking the string 5 with a force corresponding to the key striking strength data.
One of typical conventional automatic piano playing instruments has been described above in brief. Such automatic piano playing instruments have been found not entirely satisfactory, however, in the following points:
(1) Since the musical performance data relating to all the keys is being recored constantly, a considerable amount of storage medium (magnetic tape) is required: The constant recording of the musical performance data on the storage medium is somewhat ineffective in a sense that even when the musical performance data does not change its contents, i.e., when the same key data and key striking strength data are maintained during a certain period, these same data must be sequentially recorded on the storage medium until that period terminates.
(2) Since the key striking strength data is generated in accordance with the output from the microphone 9, particularly when a plurality of keys are concurrently depressed, the data of particular one of the keys can not be discriminated from the output representing the data of all of the plurality of depressed keys. Consequently, it is difficult to reproduce the musical performance with high fidelity.
Apart from the above primary problems, some inconveniences have been pointed out when a storage medium other than the magnetic tape is used for the automatic playing musical instrument: the musical performance data stored in the magnetic tape can be fast-forwarded or rewound (fast-backward) with such a speed as a person can easily control or recognize the amount of the data proceeded or receded. However, in the case of the musical performance data stored in such as a floppy disk, although a high speed proceeding or receding of the data can be attained in proportion to the rotational speed of the floppy disk, no proper measures to control adequately the amount of the data, or to decrease the speed of the data to be proceeded or receded to a more practical and recognizable one, have been proposed to date. Furthermore, effective retrieval of one of the plural pieces of music stored in the stroage medium has long been desired in this field of technology.